the souvenir: part 2…

I went along to the Watershed this afternoon to see director Joanna Hogg’s highly autobiographical study of a young film-maker in “The Souvenir: Part 2” - featuring the excellent Honor Swinton (Julie) in the lead role and Tida Swinton (her real-life mother) as her mother.
I felt something of a fraud because I hadn’t seen Part 1, but hey ho!
The film starts in the aftermath of Julie’s relationship with the heroin-addicted Anthony (played by Tom Burke), from the 2019 ‘Souvenir’ film, which leaves Julie struggling to make sense of their former life together, with all its mysteries and issues.
Julie is an ambitious film student entering an intoxicating world of unpredictable romantic entanglements in 1980s London. She faces the prospect of having to make her film-school graduation project while still reeling from the fallout of her doomed relationship and decides to channel her personal experiences into a free-form “memorial” to Anthony - that both baffles and irritates her tutors. For me, it brought back memories of student life (architecture not film-making, I hasten to add!) and the risky business, as a naïve and inexperienced student, of ‘ignoring’ the tutors’ opinions and directions (or at least bending interpretations!).
 
As Julie’s life and studies progress (and as she reflects on/recovers from her ‘Anthony’ experiences), we see her getting tougher, arguing for the camera positions she wants from her student colleagues, having to let down actor friends who had assumed she was going to cast them in her film… but also going into therapy to deal with her anxiety and loneliness.
The film ends (of course) with her tutors recognising her graduation piece and her talent at a celebratory showing of Julie’s work. It’s something of a creative coming of age story. Powerful and endearing. I rather loved it.